Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government.

This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic.

 

Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it.

 

You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.

 

 

Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

 

 

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government.

This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic.

 

Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it.

 

You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.

I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about?

Sorry Sister... I'll try to respond when I can stop laughing.

You know I wish there were more pardons given to obviously innocent people. Anyway here is a couple articles I think you folks would find interesting.

 

New York Times Article

 

The Washington Post article

 

Edit: I want to make sure I am clear. i want people who are obviously innocent to get the pardons. Not guilty people, like this sheriff.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41058851

 

Usually I try to avoid all news concerning Trump, but this one caught my eye. Not because the person he pardoned (who I feel is scum of this earth, but that's beside the point), but more so the whole pardoning thing. Can someone explain to me what pardoning actually is and what it does. What is he pardoned for and why does the President have a right to pardon someone. To me as an outsider it seems like a very big breach of the concept of separation of power. 

 

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. 

 

Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). 

 

All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial.

 

 

 

 

Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government.

This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic.

 

Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it.

 

You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about?

 

 

I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote.  If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections.  The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people).  My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought.

 

My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation.

Edited August 28, 20179 yr by hilowe

 

We have 50 states in our Republic. Since the birth of our nation, not one President was ever elected on the premise that they received the most votes from the states with the most people. I don't know about you, but I don't feel comfortable with our President being chosen by California... nor did our founders wish our President to be chosen by New York or Virginia. I do believe that if 50 million new Republican voters ended up in Texas or Alaska, you would be singing a different song... but I'm all for getting things right, so get your people to draft up that Constitutional amendment and get two thirds of the states to ratify that monster... and then we will allow California to elect our President. After that gets finalized, maybe people will stop complaining about it.

I would be singing this tune no matter what. It should be national majority. Everyone gets equal votes instead of giving weight to individual states. The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government. That is why they called all Americans equal.

 

I kinda agree. The electoral college was created back when states had far more individual culture and identity, back when the nation was far less connected, especially through instant communication and nationwide live broadcasts. On the other hand, the electoral college does kind of preserve said state identity, culture and gives more fair influence. My state for example has a tiny population. Without the electoral college, the opinions of liberals might actually mean something, but the opinions of the state as a whole would not.  

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41058851

 

Usually I try to avoid all news concerning Trump, but this one caught my eye. Not because the person he pardoned (who I feel is scum of this earth, but that's beside the point), but more so the whole pardoning thing. Can someone explain to me what pardoning actually is and what it does. What is he pardoned for and why does the President have a right to pardon someone. To me as an outsider it seems like a very big breach of the concept of separation of power. 

 

 

 

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. 

 

Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). 

 

All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

 

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government.

 

This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic.

 

Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it.

 

You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about?

 

 

 

I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote.  If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections.  The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people).  My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought.

 

My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation.

I was not thinking of the votes being broken down by state. I was thinking of all votes being counted as a national vote. Like a true democracy. State by state would hardly be fair.

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41058851

 

Usually I try to avoid all news concerning Trump, but this one caught my eye. Not because the person he pardoned (who I feel is scum of this earth, but that's beside the point), but more so the whole pardoning thing. Can someone explain to me what pardoning actually is and what it does. What is he pardoned for and why does the President have a right to pardon someone. To me as an outsider it seems like a very big breach of the concept of separation of power. 

 

 

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. 

 

Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). 

 

All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial.

 

 

 

 

Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government.

This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic.

 

Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it.

 

You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about?

 

 

 

I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote.  If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections.  The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people).  My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought.

 

My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation.

I was not thinking of the votes being broken down by state. I was thinking of all votes being counted as a national vote. Like a true democracy. State by state would hardly be fair.

 

We are also talking about a national popular vote. Candidates only have so much money and time to run their campaigns and can therefore only visit so many places. As hilowe stated, however, over 1/2 of the population of the US belongs to roughly 1/5th of the states. If you are a candidate and the election is based on popular vote you will campaign and pander pretty much exclusively to those states and effectively ignore all of the issues and needs of the other states because they just don't have enough people to be worth the time or effort. Why go to Wyoming at all for instance? There's only 600,000 people there and the same time and money could be spent in New York where New York City alone has 8.5 million. You'd get far more votes for your campaign dollar there, but what is good for New York is not going to necessarily be good for Montana or South Carolina and may in fact be detrimental to them. The electoral college boosts the influence of the smaller states so that they still have at least some influence in national politics and have their voices heard. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41058851

 

Usually I try to avoid all news concerning Trump, but this one caught my eye. Not because the person he pardoned (who I feel is scum of this earth, but that's beside the point), but more so the whole pardoning thing. Can someone explain to me what pardoning actually is and what it does. What is he pardoned for and why does the President have a right to pardon someone. To me as an outsider it seems like a very big breach of the concept of separation of power. 

 

 

 

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. 

 

Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). 

 

All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

 

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government.

 

This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic.

 

Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it.

 

You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about?

 

 

 

I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote.  If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections.  The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people).  My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought.

 

My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation.

I was not thinking of the votes being broken down by state. I was thinking of all votes being counted as a national vote. Like a true democracy. State by state would hardly be fair.

 

 

We are also talking about a national popular vote. Candidates only have so much money and time to run their campaigns and can therefore only visit so many places. As hilowe stated, however, over 1/2 of the population of the US belongs to roughly 1/5th of the states. If you are a candidate and the election is based on popular vote you will campaign and pander pretty much exclusively to those states and effectively ignore all of the issues and needs of the other states because they just don't have enough people to be worth the time or effort. Why go to Wyoming at all for instance? There's only 600,000 people there and the same time and money could be spent in New York where New York City alone has 8.5 million. You'd get far more votes for your campaign dollar there, but what is good for New York is not going to necessarily be good for Montana or South Carolina and may in fact be detrimental to them. The electoral college boosts the influence of the smaller states so that they still have at least some influence in national politics and have their voices heard. 

Oh? I thought the candidates currently pander to the states that will provide them with enough electoral votes to win, while virtually ignoring others. Do you see it differently?

 

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41058851

 

Usually I try to avoid all news concerning Trump, but this one caught my eye. Not because the person he pardoned (who I feel is scum of this earth, but that's beside the point), but more so the whole pardoning thing. Can someone explain to me what pardoning actually is and what it does. What is he pardoned for and why does the President have a right to pardon someone. To me as an outsider it seems like a very big breach of the concept of separation of power. 

 

 

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. 

 

Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). 

 

All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial.

 

 

 

 

Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government.

This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic.

 

Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it.

 

You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about?

 

 

 

I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote.  If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections.  The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people).  My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought.

 

My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation.

I was not thinking of the votes being broken down by state. I was thinking of all votes being counted as a national vote. Like a true democracy. State by state would hardly be fair.

 

 

We are also talking about a national popular vote. Candidates only have so much money and time to run their campaigns and can therefore only visit so many places. As hilowe stated, however, over 1/2 of the population of the US belongs to roughly 1/5th of the states. If you are a candidate and the election is based on popular vote you will campaign and pander pretty much exclusively to those states and effectively ignore all of the issues and needs of the other states because they just don't have enough people to be worth the time or effort. Why go to Wyoming at all for instance? There's only 600,000 people there and the same time and money could be spent in New York where New York City alone has 8.5 million. You'd get far more votes for your campaign dollar there, but what is good for New York is not going to necessarily be good for Montana or South Carolina and may in fact be detrimental to them. The electoral college boosts the influence of the smaller states so that they still have at least some influence in national politics and have their voices heard. Oh? I thought the candidates currently pander to the states that will provide them with enough electoral votes to win, while virtually ignoring others. Do you see it differently?

 

 

They do, to an extent.  In Nebraska, it's tough for a Democrat to win much of anything (Obama won 1 electoral vote from Nebraska in both elections, IIRC, because we are one of two states that will split our electoral votes), so they still campaign here, but not as much as they do in California and New York.

 

Change that to national popularity, and then there's almost no reason to spend time here in the 34th most populous state.  They can tailor their message for New York, LA, and Chicago (the three most populous cities in the US), and screw the rural areas completely. 

 

Going with CC's example of Wyoming.  They currently have 3 electoral votes, which is 0.3% of the requirement to win a presidential election.  Go to a national popular vote, and that number goes to 0.18%.  Now consider New York (the city only), population of ~8.5 million, in a country of 322.5 million.  That is 2.6% of the requirement to win in one city.

 

My understanding is, this was something that the founding fathers were very concerned about (at that time it was the state of Virginia that had the huge population).  The electoral college was the compromise they came up with that took into account the population, giving more populous states a larger say but still allowing the smaller states (Maryland) some say in national politics.  It's also how they came up with the two houses of Congress (House of Representatives, where representation is based on population, and Senate, two representatives per state).

 

Sources:

 

Population of states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population

Population of cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

Electoral college: www.270towin.com

 

Oh? I thought the candidates currently pander to the states that will provide them with enough electoral votes to win, while virtually ignoring others. Do you see it differently?

 

Yes they do, and the electoral college allows states with low populations to be the recipient of some of that pandering rather than just big states, by (admittedly artificially) inflating the weight of their votes. That's the point.

 

It also serves to keep large cities such as New York City listed above from constantly deciding who will run the country at the expense of those who do not live in big cities and have completely different needs and interests. 

 

Edit: Looks like Hilowe beat me to the punch and put it more eloquently than I have.

Edited August 29, 20179 yr by Count Lugosi

 

Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

 

Well I'd guess that is your guys issue with a 2 party system, you are either A or B. Lumping the Tea Party into the Republicans is as idiotic to me as lumping Sanders together with the Democrats. You fools have upped the French system (only pool when national) to a ludricous level. And you just blame "the other side" for making the entire thing a black/white drama...

 

And about being "the biggest news on the planet", you do know that is conservative right? No doubt you heard of Murdoch. Perhaps you should start wondering why all the "conservative" news is rather grouped up into a few big players while the "liberal" news has a much wider range of outlets.

Well I'd guess that is your guys issue with a 2 party system, you are either A or B. Lumping the Tea Party into the Republicans is as idiotic to me as lumping Sanders together with the Democrats. You fools have upped the French system (only pool when national) to a ludricous level. And you just blame "the other side" for making the entire thing a black/white drama... And about being "the biggest news on the planet", you do know that is conservative right? No doubt you heard of Murdoch. Perhaps you should start wondering why all the "conservative" news is rather grouped up into a few big players while the "liberal" news has a much wider range of outlets.

Once again, I don't understand how the Belgian mind is working. I think you just throw things up to troll me, but I'll bite.

 

The Tea Party was launched in opposition to the Obama agenda. Of course they were Republicans... I was one of them.

 

Bernie Sanders ran as a Democrat. Democrats that wanted Sanders over Hillary Clinton, supported him. Of course he's "lumping" into the Democrats... he caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate.

 

The Drudge Report doesn't go out, find, and report, the news... It's a news portal. It's a website that people can go to that links all news stories of interest on a single page, so no one has to look at a hundred different websites to discover what is going on. They do the looking for you, and link it so you get there right away. It gets billions of visitors. It is my homepage, and the first thing I see every day.

It doesn't really matter which side they "ran with", what matters is what are the core values they are organized around. I would argue that centrist Democrats have much more in common with centrist Republicans than they have with "ultra progressive" SJW. Same goes for the other side and Tea Party ascribers. Ironically, it ppears many people were flip-flopping between voting Trump or voting Sanders, as they both ran on a platform of "helping out the little man".

It doesn't really matter which side they "ran with", what matters is what are the core values they are organized around. I would argue that centrist Democrats have much more in common with centrist Republicans than they have with "ultra progressive" SJW.

 

 

I will agree with these two statements 100%.

 

Well I'd guess that is your guys issue with a 2 party system, you are either A or B. Lumping the Tea Party into the Republicans is as idiotic to me as lumping Sanders together with the Democrats. You fools have upped the French system (only pool when national) to a ludricous level. And you just blame "the other side" for making the entire thing a black/white drama... And about being "the biggest news on the planet", you do know that is conservative right? No doubt you heard of Murdoch. Perhaps you should start wondering why all the "conservative" news is rather grouped up into a few big players while the "liberal" news has a much wider range of outlets.

Once again, I don't understand how the Belgian mind is working. I think you just throw things up to troll me, but I'll bite.

 

The Tea Party was launched in opposition to the Obama agenda. Of course they were Republicans... I was one of them.

 

Bernie Sanders ran as a Democrat. Democrats that wanted Sanders over Hillary Clinton, supported him. Of course he's "lumping" into the Democrats... he caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate.

 

The Drudge Report doesn't go out, find, and report, the news... It's a news portal. It's a website that people can go to that links all news stories of interest on a single page, so no one has to look at a hundred different websites to discover what is going on. They do the looking for you, and link it so you get there right away. It gets billions of visitors. It is my homepage, and the first thing I see every day.

 

 

The tea party was a largely lobiest assorted group who "drafted" some GOP members but also (previously unaffiliated, but conservative) non-government background people.

 

I will echo ccabal's assessment that coupled with a 2-party system that leads to such obvious divides on party extreme's but has the strangeness that party moderates (and even "common side" outsiders) can intertwine. It is just sad that the extreme loudmouths (on either side) keep the 2 party's in check and destroy any possible common ground and compromise those moderate partymembers may come forth with.

 

As for the drudge news being rather a portal then a news organisation itself, the people bringing the links can still be skewed, even more so as you can easely create a echo-chamber of likeminded individuals. A good example would be to for example find how many pro-euthanesia links were posted in a year in respect to anti-euthanesia pieces.

 

 

It doesn't really matter which side they "ran with", what matters is what are the core values they are organized around. I would argue that centrist Democrats have much more in common with centrist Republicans than they have with "ultra progressive" SJW. Same goes for the other side and Tea Party ascribers. Ironically, it ppears many people were flip-flopping between voting Trump or voting Sanders, as they both ran on a platform of "helping out the little man".

And don't forget the "sticking it to THE MAN" >_>

It doesn't really matter which side they "ran with", what matters is what are the core values they are organized around. I would argue that centrist Democrats have much more in common with centrist Republicans than they have with "ultra progressive" SJW. Same goes for the other side and Tea Party ascribers. Ironically, it ppears many people were flip-flopping between voting Trump or voting Sanders, as they both ran on a platform of "helping out the little man".

Trump certainly helped out one little man, Joe Arpaio.

 

It doesn't really matter which side they "ran with", what matters is what are the core values they are organized around. I would argue that centrist Democrats have much more in common with centrist Republicans than they have with "ultra progressive" SJW. Same goes for the other side and Tea Party ascribers. Ironically, it ppears many people were flip-flopping between voting Trump or voting Sanders, as they both ran on a platform of "helping out the little man".

Trump certainly helped out one little man, Joe Arpaio.

 

      LOOOOLS!

 

And he did it with LITTLE HANDS!!!!

Edited August 31, 20179 yr by NabuPilasar

 

 

 

 

It doesn't really matter which side they "ran with", what matters is what are the core values they are organized around. I would argue that centrist Democrats have much more in common with centrist Republicans than they have with "ultra progressive" SJW. Same goes for the other side and Tea Party ascribers. Ironically, it ppears many people were flip-flopping between voting Trump or voting Sanders, as they both ran on a platform of "helping out the little man".

 

Trump certainly helped out one little man, Joe Arpaio.

 

 

      LOOOOLS!

 

And he did it with LITTLE HANDS!!!!

LMAO!

Since apparently we got on the joke train, this cracked me up:

 

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/289/912/83e.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/dCeNBT2.jpg

Good to see you guys brought your A game today.

Since apparently we got on the joke train, this cracked me up:

 

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/289/912/83e.jpg

 

Ivanka looks like a cross between Sabrina the teenage witch and Buffy the vampire slayer (yes this shows my age )

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41058851

 

Usually I try to avoid all news concerning Trump, but this one caught my eye. Not because the person he pardoned (who I feel is scum of this earth, but that's beside the point), but more so the whole pardoning thing. Can someone explain to me what pardoning actually is and what it does. What is he pardoned for and why does the President have a right to pardon someone. To me as an outsider it seems like a very big breach of the concept of separation of power. 

 

 

I know I'm going a long ways back in the posting to respond to this, but every president issues pardons. 

 

Some pardons are obviously more controversial than others. Some examples I can think of (and had to use Google to get the correct names and backgrounds) are Barrack Obama pardoning of Oscar Lopez Rivera (admitted terrorist, offered pardon by Clinton in the 90's if he would renounce violence, but Rivera wouldn't renounce it), Bill Clinton pardoning his brother (drug related offense), and George W Bush commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence (perjury related to testimony about revealing an active CIA agents identity, still has guilty verdict, just removed the prison sentence). 

 

All of these are allowed, just for one reason or another (nepotism, favoritism, etc), the decisions were controversial.

 

 

 

 

Wait, did you just consider Breitbart to be GOP affilated?

Wait... Was Breitbart created by Andrew Breitbart? Wasn't he the guy who made The Drudge Report the biggest news site on the planet? Wasn't he the voice and spirit of the Tea Party? and then mysteriously died of a heart attack at the age of 43? Yep... and I miss him every day. He was a Conservative Lion, and would have made a great President someday.

 

The electoral college existed because people couldn't communicate quickly and easily AND because our founders realized the average person was not very intelligent. We aren't necessarily more intelligent, but we can more easily have a national election. And I can promise you our founders did not think about California at all since it wasn't a state. Our founders would have hated an imperialist or oligarchy government.

This is utter nonsense. Of course they didn't think about California... but they did think about Virginia. It was by far the most populated state in our new nation, and the most important fact about Virginia... it was a slave state. There was no way the northern states would give that much power to the south. You are correct that our founders would never stand for a government ruled by a Monarch, nor would they stand for a Democracy... that is why we have a Republic.

 

Draft up the amendment and go for it. Either succeed in changing the way we elect the President, or fail in the attempt. If you can manage to get the country to go along with it, I most certainly will congratulate you and abide by the new Constitution... but I don't think you will do it, succeed in doing it, or even get it off the ground... because the reason it was done in the first place, still exists to this very day. Also if you guys did try to do it, you know you will fail, and then you will lose your ability to keep complaining about it.

 

You know I didn't like it when Bill Clinton became President after only receiving 43% of the vote... but he captured enough electoral votes to win. That's what chooses the President. By all means... I challenge you to change it... anything to get people to STFU.I will not STFU. Remember our beloved first amendment, I will say my opinion until you change the constitution and take that right from me. I can't imagine why my opinion about the electoral college upsets you to the point where you talk like that. Are you one of those special snowflakes I hear some people talk about?

 

 

 

I'm obviously not a fan of popular vote.  If this was ever going to pass, my entire state would have almost no say in presidential elections.  The politicians would spend almost all of their time in probably the 12 most populous states (based on last population census I found, those 12 states account for ~192.5 million people in a nation of ~321.5 million people).  My state, at 34th on that list, would never see a presidential candidate (not that that would be a bad thing by itself), and therefore, the candidates would not care what people in my state thought.

 

My understanding was, that was the reason our founding fathers set on the electoral college, so a couple of large states couldn't make policy for the entire nation.

I was not thinking of the votes being broken down by state. I was thinking of all votes being counted as a national vote. Like a true democracy. State by state would hardly be fair.

 

 

We are also talking about a national popular vote. Candidates only have so much money and time to run their campaigns and can therefore only visit so many places. As hilowe stated, however, over 1/2 of the population of the US belongs to roughly 1/5th of the states. If you are a candidate and the election is based on popular vote you will campaign and pander pretty much exclusively to those states and effectively ignore all of the issues and needs of the other states because they just don't have enough people to be worth the time or effort. Why go to Wyoming at all for instance? There's only 600,000 people there and the same time and money could be spent in New York where New York City alone has 8.5 million. You'd get far more votes for your campaign dollar there, but what is good for New York is not going to necessarily be good for Montana or South Carolina and may in fact be detrimental to them. The electoral college boosts the influence of the smaller states so that they still have at least some influence in national politics and have their voices heard. Oh? I thought the candidates currently pander to the states that will provide them with enough electoral votes to win, while virtually ignoring others. Do you see it differently?

 

 

They do, to an extent.  In Nebraska, it's tough for a Democrat to win much of anything (Obama won 1 electoral vote from Nebraska in both elections, IIRC, because we are one of two states that will split our electoral votes), so they still campaign here, but not as much as they do in California and New York.

 

Change that to national popularity, and then there's almost no reason to spend time here in the 34th most populous state.  They can tailor their message for New York, LA, and Chicago (the three most populous cities in the US), and screw the rural areas completely. 

 

Going with CC's example of Wyoming.  They currently have 3 electoral votes, which is 0.3% of the requirement to win a presidential election.  Go to a national popular vote, and that number goes to 0.18%.  Now consider New York (the city only), population of ~8.5 million, in a country of 322.5 million.  That is 2.6% of the requirement to win in one city.

 

My understanding is, this was something that the founding fathers were very concerned about (at that time it was the state of Virginia that had the huge population).  The electoral college was the compromise they came up with that took into account the population, giving more populous states a larger say but still allowing the smaller states (Maryland) some say in national politics.  It's also how they came up with the two houses of Congress (House of Representatives, where representation is based on population, and Senate, two representatives per state).

 

Sources:

 

Population of states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population

Population of cities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

Electoral college: www.270towin.com

 

 

Was reading this on the Daily Wire today, and remembered this conversation.

 

http://www.dailywire.com/news/21099/hillary-wants-abolish-electoral-college-there-frank-camp

 

Author brings up some stuff that I didn't remember from my history classes (or just wasn't taught, my high school history teacher was more interested in high school sports, hence he wanted to be called Coach John rather than Mr John).

 

 

Was reading this on the Daily Wire today, and remembered this conversation. http://www.dailywire.com/news/21099/hillary-wants-abolish-electoral-college-there-frank-camp Author brings up some stuff that I didn't remember from my history classes (or just wasn't taught, my high school history teacher was more interested in high school sports, hence he wanted to be called Coach John rather than Mr John).

This was a good read... thank you for sharing. This section really stood out...

 

"The reason Hillary Clinton wants to eliminate the Electoral College is because she lost. It's that simple. If the situation were reversed, with Trump winning the popular vote, and Clinton the electoral, she would not be speaking about the issue.​"

 

Thomas Jefferson famously declared that a Democracy is 51% of the people stomping on the rights of 49% of the people... it still rings true today, the key reason why they chose to give us a Republic, and remains the backbone of our entire system. If every issue was left to a majority vote... we would have a much different country.

 

We should have a Constitutional Convention to hash out all these screaming crybabies and end the bawling. I do believe at the very least we should have some kind of qualification to be President... really I want the bar to be much higher than 35 and born in the USA.

 

My 2 cents.